Note: With two notable exceptions below, I almost always ask one of the flight crew if I can take an airline safety card.

Do I really want to take an airline safety card as a souvenir? They’re typically cooped up in one of those seat-back pockets, probably the nastiest place on a plane – save for the loo/next to anyone eating Macca’s – to place your electronics/reading material/children/etc. Not to mention, they have those please do not remove from the aircraft labels…well, that’s why you ask first.

I’m not going to display my whole collection, but here are a few that stand out from the horde:

As stated above, this is one of those that I didn’t ask to take…likely because I was a little snot way back then.

I took one flight with the bygone Adam Air, between Bali DPS and Jakarta CGK. The Merpati (another defunct Indonesian carrier) staff at DPS helped me buy this ticket, due to some overeager flooding causing capacity issues at Jakarta airport that weekend.

It’s also one of the few flights from 2008 and earlier that I vividly remember. Inside the plane, there was duct tape liberally used to hold various parts/doors together. Pieces of my seat were missing, and the plane rattled from take-off to touchdown. Might as well thrown in a couple more photos of Adam Air, because it seemed that they were doomed from day one.

In fact, just a month after my trip, due to a variety of sordid affairs, they ceased operations.

Taken from two American Airlines “Super 80s,” or DC-9-80s’. The logo may have changed, but the stale and unwelcoming interior remains constant.

Would be even weirder if these two cards are from the same plane, just years apart.

Way to go, Air Asia. Your retrofitting of this safety card really instills confidence in me…

Oh. That’ll do.

This CRJ1000 card from Garuda Indonesia is the newest (in terms of aircraft age) in my collection.

Though, hah, I have some pretty bad luck flying from Bali, as this particular flight had to return to Bali airport to refuel. In other words, the routing was Bali-Bali.

The pièce de résistance- an airline safety card from a Tupolev 134 of North Korea’sAir Koryo. Definitely didn’t ask permission to take this one. Furthermore, it’s the only Soviet-made plane with a presence in my archives, and it’s one of two Soviet jets that I’ve flown (the other – also with Air Koryo – was an Ilyushin 62).

Sure, some of these airline safety cards have amusing graphics, too, but that wasn’t the focus of today’s post. Though, if you have any photos of unforgettable cards that you’d like to submit, let me know!